by Nancy Gideon
“I was never a Boy Scout any more than you were a Girl Scout, detective. I’m just answering your question.”
D’Marco looked between them impatiently. “Are there any other relevant questions for my client?”
“Just one.” Babineau tapped one of the gruesome photographs. “In looking at these pictures, Mr. Savoie, how do you think a man managed to inflict such a horrendous amount of damage?”
Without blinking, Max said, “By growing fangs and claws, detective. That would be my guess.”
“We’re done,” D’Marco announced, standing up and placing a reassuring hand on Max’s shoulder. “I’ll get you arraigned as quickly as possible and out of here.”
“Thank you, Tony.”
Babineau started for the door behind the attorney, but Cee Cee hung back.
“I’d like to speak to Max alone for a minute.”
“Ceece,” her partner warned quietly. “That’s not a good idea.” When she didn’t back down, he sighed. “Make it quick and keep your distance.”
She waited until the two of them were alone to turn to Max. She kept her back to the camera and her voice low.
“What the hell are you doing? Why did you open up your alibi for Sandra Cummings?”
“I didn’t want to make things awkward for you, detective. Honesty being the best policy and all.”
His calm annoyed her, because she felt helpless to protect him. That worry made it hard to hold to her impassive face even when he seemed determined to provoke her with his attitude.
He assessed her with a far-from-flattering look that had the hair on her neck bristling, then drawled, “You were quite a bulldog with your questions about Mrs. Cummings. I wasn’t aware you were only interested in a pen pal relationship, care of the state.”
“If she said something to me, it was only a matter of time before she pointed the finger of blame at you in front of someone else. I thought it would be smart to get it out in the open so it wouldn’t look like you were trying to hide anything.”
“I’m not, detective. And that sharp little slap on my wrist made you look pretty good, too.” His voice lowered to the gravelly rumble that always stroked her nerve endings into a quiver. It made her think of rough-and-tumble sex in the dark. “You look pretty good to me right now, all starched up and sassy. I’m afraid we’ll have to make a rain check for tonight. I would have preferred your Grand Canyon tour to the lockup.”
What did he want from her? He had to know his sudden burst of candor had cut the legs out from under her plan to insulate him from suspicion. Did he want to go to jail? Something was going on with him, something reckless and distressing, and she was just too damned dense in the sensitivity department to figure it out.
He was trying to tell her something with all his cryptic talk about fathers and secrets, but what was he getting at? How did he expect her to finesse his meaning when she had all the subtlety of an urban assault vehicle? How could someone so direct and intense suddenly dance a light-footed two-step around what was close to his heart, when she was clogging away to a different rhythm?
He’d had something to say to her, had been trying to get to it the last two times they were together. But the sex kept getting in the way. And she just wasn’t noble enough to force her hormones to take a backseat, when the backseat she desired involved rolling around in it naked with him. Whenever she was around him, the need to touch him, to hold him tightly, even here, even now, was almost overwhelming. But she clung to her control.
“Are you going to be all right? Dammit, Max, I can’t do anything to help you now.”
“I know. I know the drill, Charlotte. D’Marco will take care of me. And I’m fairly capable when it comes to handling myself.”
“Max, who were you talking to outside of St. Bart’s?”
His expression locked down tight.
“Cee Cee,” Babineau called in. “They’ve got to take him now.”
She swore softly. Then, without considering the repercussions, she ducked down to fix a swift, hard kiss on his mouth, whispering, “Be careful. I’ll see you soon,” before she strode out the door.
“YOU WANTED TO see me, chief?”
Cee Cee didn’t quail beneath Chief Byron Atcliff’s pale glower, the way the most seasoned veterans of the force would have. But she didn’t underestimate the seriousness of this call to his office.
“Shut the door, detective.” When she complied, he gestured to the straight-backed chair in front of his desk. The hot seat. “Sit.” She sat. “You’re too smart not to know why you’re here.”
“Max Savoie.”
“What’s the story?”
“My partner and I were told to bring him in as a suspect in a murder investigation.”
“I can read that in the report. What’s going on between the lines? Cummings is screaming in the commissioner’s ear about unethical behavior on the part of one of my team. Would he be correct?”
“Absolutely not, sir.”
“Then your relationship with Savoie is . . . ?”
“He is . . .” She searched for a word then settled for “my boyfriend. We’re dating when I’m off duty, sir.”
“Dating.” There was a long, suspenseful silence, the kind that followed the sudden loud crack of thin ice before a frigid plunge. “You know, don’t you, detective, that the public doesn’t believe those who serve them are ever off duty or have the right to a private life, especially if it involves playing suck face in the interrogation room with a suspect.”
“Would you let Mrs. Atcliff go off to jail without some expression of support, chief?”
“Mrs. Atcliff would not be going off to jail, and that was a very private display on the public’s time.”
“I apologize, sir.”
“I’m afraid that’s not going to be enough, detective.”
She sat straight and still, waiting to hear the worst.
Atcliff sighed in aggravation. “He’s a criminal, Lottie. The kind of lowlife your daddy and I dragged in off the streets every day and night on the streets together.”
“I know. I can’t help it. I’m crazy about him, Uncle Byron.”
Byron Atcliff was tall and stringy and tough as bullets. He’d taken one, in fact, to save her father’s life. And he was also no fool. He could see in his goddaughter’s eyes that it was more than a casual thing with Savoie. Savoie.
For a responsibility he’d shouldered willingly, for a girl who’d never given him reason for grief, he was abruptly floundering. There wasn’t a step she’d taken in her career that didn’t puff him up with pride. He couldn’t help but see this one as a disastrous detour off that path. “Crazy would be the word. Your daddy’s most likely rolling in his grave,” he mourned.
Cee Cee gave a small smile. “I don’t know. I think he and Max might have liked each other. They’re both stubborn and loyal and dedicated. And they both love me.”
“So do I. That’s why I can’t let this go. Hell, you practically grew up in the squad car between me and your daddy. And as much as he loved you, he hated Jimmy Legere. You know Legere put the hit on him.”
She said nothing. Her eyes glimmered damply.
“And yet you go and fall right into the arms of his top enforcer, his successor.”
“I didn’t mean to.” Her tiny apology chiseled none of the granite from the stern expression.
“Do you think you could have picked someone a little lower on the illegal food chain?”
“I didn’t pick him, Uncle Byron. It just sort of . . . happened. I can’t explain it.”
“Kidney stones just sort of happen without explanation, and look at the hell you have to go through to pass one of them. Do you have any idea what you’re going to have to deal with once he’s out of your system? The kind of damage control it’s going to take?”
Her smile was bittersweet. “I don’t think he’s something I’m going to get over.”
“Thirty to life might be one helluva cure.”
The dewy-
eyed vulnerability was gone in a blink, and he found himself looking at the hard-edged female version of Tommy Caissie. Tommy hadn’t listened when it came to romance, either, and he nearly hadn’t survived that mistake. His daughter wouldn’t suffer equally if Byron could do anything about it.
But what could he do about it? There was nothing more stubborn than a Caissie once they’d dug in their heels and attached their heartstrings.
“He’s not guilty, chief. He didn’t do this.”
Atcliff’s expression hardened. “You know that for a fact? Even though facts tie him in with a hangman’s noose.”
“Any number of people could have set him up for the fall. The MO is right out of the horror stories Legere built around him. My gut tells me he’s not involved.”
“Your gut, your heart—I don’t care if it’s your damned pancreas. You know what he is.”
“He’s not Jimmy Legere. He’s a good man in a bad spot. He didn’t have the chance to grow up any differently, to make any other choices.”
“And I’m supposed to feel sorry for him, is that it? That’s a weak excuse and you know it, detective. Prison is full of those victims of society. He doesn’t need a social worker, Lottie. He needs a jailer. He needs to be behind bars. If not for this, then for any number of other things he’s involved in.”
“He’s pulling Legere’s interests away from the other side of the law,” she argued doggedly. “He’s making them legit. Give him a chance.”
His jaw set. “We don’t give chances here, detective. Once they get to us, they are out of them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t be a fool, Lottie. Don’t let him take you down with him. His type will grab anything to keep from going under. You know that.”
“He’s innocent, sir.”
“Prove it, detective. Prove it first, then talk to me about chances.”
“I will.”
“You’ve put me in a bad spot, Charlotte. Your off hours are yours to do with as you choose, with whomever you choose. But I can’t have you compromising the integrity of an investigation by playing house with one of the main suspects.”
“So where does that leave me?”
“You know where. Either you put distance between yourself and Savoie for the duration of the case or you take yourself off it. I don’t have any other choices for you. Not with Cummings demanding you be disciplined.”
“So that’s my punishment?” Her tone was cool and flat, betraying none of the temper cooking up a spicy hot roux on the inside.
“I don’t let civilians tell me how to handle my people,” he snarled, letting his anger slip out for a moment. “But politics is politics, and the higher-ups want us to play the game. Help me out here, Lottie. I don’t want this to mark your career. Your daddy was the best cop I ever knew and you’re just as good. Don’t throw it away. I want my best and brightest on the team. I need this wrapped in a hurry with a pretty bow, and you and Babineau can make that happen. You can give these families closure for the ugly way their loved ones died.”
That hit her hard and low, just as he knew it would. “I want that, too.”
“Then talk to Savoie. D’Marco will earn his fee and have him sprung before he has a chance to wear the creases out of his jail issue. I don’t want Cummings and his people mucking up our inquiry with hints of impropriety. If Savoie’s the stand-up guy you want to think he is, he’ll understand and give you room to work.”
“It’s not fair, sir.”
“I’m well aware of that, detective. Little about our work involves fairness. We’re lucky if we can squeeze an ounce of justice out of it once in a while. If you want fair, ask yourself how fair it would be to pull your partner off a high-profile case that will look impressive on his résumé. Ask yourself how fair it would be to tell the Cummings and Goodman families that you put your love life above the arrest of the one responsible for victimizing their daughter, wife, and mother. The department doesn’t need any more sensational press like the garbage cranked out after Legere was killed. Don’t start that feeding frenzy up again just because you have a jones for this guy.”
“I’ll do my job, sir, and I’ll do it under Cummings’s microscope. But I don’t like it.” And Max wasn’t going to like it, either.
Not one damned bit.
“Bring me proof, detective, and I’ll give him his chance.”
“I will.”
Seven
SHE SIGHED INTO the slow, reacquainting kiss that coaxed her from slumber.
Even before her eyes opened, her arms were around him, holding to the tough, rangy build, tugging him over her to enjoy the way their contours fit, hard to soft, so perfectly together.
“Heya,” he whispered against her lips.
She looked up at him as if surprised. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Expecting someone else, were you?”
She shrugged. “What can I say? My lover’s in lockup, leaving me so very, very lonely. You didn’t think I’d wait forever, did you?”
“I’ve been gone two days, not two years. And, yes, I did.”
Because he sounded disagreeable, she lifted up to lick the scowl from his mouth, confessing, “I’ve missed you, Savoie. It felt like years.”
He sucked in the teasing tip of her tongue, stroking over and around it. Her legs parted and he settled between them as her heels rubbed the backs of his thighs. He was fully dressed. She was wearing his T-shirt. His hands slipped under its hem, his palms moving slowly and seducingly on warm skin.
A soft sound of pleasure purred from her. “Did you miss me?”
His scowl returned. “I was in jail. There wasn’t a lot else to do.”
“You could have made new friends.”
“You know me, detective. I don’t play well with others.”
She smiled up at him, adoring the angles of his face with her fingertips. Her darkly dangerous, preternatural lover. “You didn’t escape, did you?”
“D’Marco sprung me. There wasn’t a scrap of evidence. Cummings must have pulled some pretty fancy strings for them to hang onto me for the full forty-eight.” He flopped over onto his back, his mood cooling with displeasure. She rolled onto her side, propping her head in one hand while the other roved the tempting, if clothed, manscape of chest and abs.
“He thinks you killed his daughter.”
His gaze fixed on hers, intent and unblinking. “Do you?”
Her reply was satisfyingly simple. “No.”
He closed his eyes and for a moment, the effects of worry and sleeplessness scored his features.
“Did they treat you all right, baby?”
He slanted a look her way, amused. “It was jail, cher, not the Marriott. I prefer the Marriott. The room service is better.”
Her fingertips ran down his shirt buttons in a quick stroke, then up again more slowly, working each one free. “This is the same suit you were wearing when you went in. Haven’t you been home yet?”
“I came straight here. To see you.”
Her heart gave a funny little shudder. Her voice grew gruff. “I think you need to take it off.”
His lowered to the same husky register. “Take it off me.”
As the last button gave way, she pushed his shirt aside so her palm could ease across his chest, so her fingers could comb through the mat of hair covering it. She lifted up, taking a moment to revel at the harsh beauty of his face, softened by the long slant of his closed eyes and slight curve of his lips, before lowering to taste the jut of his collarbone, the warm hollow of his throat where his pulse kicked up into an aggressive thunder. Moving lower to tongue his nipple into a hard point. His breathing became quick and shallow. He gripped her hand and jerked it downward, moving it over the hard ridge of his erection in fierce strokes.
“Unzip me,” he told her, his deep voice rough, not like Max.
She opened his trousers with oddly hesitant motions, her hand withdrawing as he freed himself.
His breath panting out in fast,
harsh bursts, he clasped the back of her neck, forcing her head down as he growled, “Take me in your mouth.”
The instant her chin brushed over his coarse hairs and a hot male scent seared her memories, something broke inside her. She reared back against the press of his palm, struggling as if he was holding her underwater, drowning in panic and desperate to escape it.
He let go of her immediately, then watched with surprise as she lunged up against the headboard, her posture stiff, her gaze wild. When it finally met his, for a moment there was no recognition in those dark turbulent depths.
He didn’t move. He didn’t dare.
Then she blinked rapidly. Confusion melded into an awkward need to apologize as she stammered, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what—”
“It’s all right,” he soothed with the caress of his voice, with the touch of his fingertip light upon her damp cheek. “I shouldn’t have tried to push you into something you were uncomfortable with. I’m sorry. I didn’t think . . . I shouldn’t have expected . . .” A deep flush of crimson crept up into his face. Because she looked mortified and anxious and he wasn’t sure what to do, he kept rambling on. “The fellas in lockup got to talking in that disgustingly colorful way fellas do, and they got to boasting about the women they’d had and what they liked them to do.”
“You were discussing me with your cell mates?”
“What?” He blinked. Then he laughed at her brittle tone, the sound sudden and loud, startling her. “No. Of course not. When you’ve got yourself a secret recipe that other folk would kill for, you tend to keep it to yourself.”
A smile trembled weakly on her lips. “No wonder you didn’t make any new friends.”
He flashed a quick grin, then drew her gently to him, cradling her close with his chin atop her head so she couldn’t see the horrible guilt and anguish flooding his eyes. “They were talking about their women. I was pretending not to listen. I was daydreaming about you, and the stuff they were saying just kinda spilled over into what I was thinking. Stuff I’d never even imagined doing got me all riled up, when I thought about doing it with you.”
“Pretty hot stuff, huh?” she ventured carefully.
